Tag Archives: phonemic awareness

Phonological Awareness is quite possibly my favorite early literacy skill to discuss. Partly because many people are already implementing it to some degree without recognizing it (remember: recognize, emphasize, maximize…), but also because many resources and studies suggest that it is the #1 predictor of reading success. Which is often surprising to people, since it has nothing to do with letters on a page.

I wrote about phonological awareness a while back , but this is a topic that could be written on for days! Here are a few more insights to phonological awareness, what it is, why it’s important, and how it is learned.

A Few Definitions

Phonological Awareness vs. Phonemic Awareness. Phonological awareness has to do with the child’s ability to hear and manipulate the sounds within words. This includes phonemes, syllables, rhyming, blending, segmenting, and even recognizing the number of words within a sentence. Phonemic awareness has to do more specifically with the individual phonemes in words, and is therefore sort of a subheading under the larger, overarching term phonological awareness. The two, however, are quite similar and are used interchangeably in most of the literature on the subject, and are often abbreviated as simply PA.

What’s a phoneme? Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound in words. The word “cat”, for example, has three letters, one syllable, but three phonemes, /k/ /a/ /t/. The word “tree” is also one syllable, has four letters, but has only three phonemes as well, /t/ /r/ /ē/. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet, but there are 44 phonemes in the English language. (You can download a chart of the phonemes from docstoc here.)

Phonics vs Phonological Awareness. Phonological awareness is a skill based solely on hearing and manipulating sounds. It is not a written task and is not dependent upon meaning. (So Zax and tracks do rhyme. Just one more reason why Dr. Seuss is so great!) Phonological awareness focuses on isolating the task of hearing the subtle sounds in words. Phonics begins to connect those individual sounds to the written letters that create them. It is necessary to have a solid foundation in phonological awareness to truly benefit from phonics training.

The Tasks

While there are many ways to categorize the skills involved in phonological awareness, Marilyn Jager Adams, a highly regarded literacy expert, outlined five tasks in relation to PA. The progression of skill mastery projects through first grade, so don’t expect your preschoolers to do them all right now! They are also not listed in a progressive order, but varying levels of mastery may be accomplished across each of the skills as individual children move towards proficiency. And competency continues to develop, even after children have begun to read. I’ll briefly outline those five tasks here, along with examples for each.

Substitute rhyming words in directions and transitions (“Pally can go to snack” –instead of “Sally”.)

Oddity Tasks

In a set, identify the object that differs phonemically in a specified position. For example, in the set cat, can, and mouse, which word starts with a different sound?

Identify the word that does not rhyme in a given set. For example: rock, pig, sock.

Use a puppet or picture cut out to “eat” the object that doesn’t belong.

Use a giant felt X to X-out the picture of the “trickster”.

Orally Blend and Divide Words

Use visuals like a rubber band, slinky, or hands to “stretch” out the sounds in a word and then quickly and smoothly blend them together. Break words up phonetically or by onset and rime. (l-a-dd-er or l-adder, respectively) Use it as a “sneaky word” activity, with you dividing and the children blending to guess the word!

Have children talk like a robot – they naturally divide along syllables.

Have children use counters or Elkonin boxes to count the number of sounds in a word.

Have children sort pictures according to the number of sounds in the words. (3= pot, cat, dad; 4= water, dance, jump)

Encourage children to talk like a turtle, slowing down to divide into phonemes.

Manipulation of Sounds

Children develop the ability to delete and substitute phonemes within words.

Give clues for a “mystery word.” (It rhymes with rose, but starts with /n/.)

If I said “book” without the /b/, what would it sound like? (“ook”)

Two Tips

There are two things I feel are necessary to point out before you jump into more PA training. First, it is very important to model correct pronunciation, especially when doing PA exercises. For example, if you (as many around here do) pronounce “mountain” as “mou’en”, a child will not be able to correctly identify the phonemes in that word. Secondly, since PA activities often rely on pictures rather than written words, it is important to clarify with your children, exactly what word each picture represents. Children will have a hard time matching “bug” and “rug” if they are looking at them as a “beetle” and a “place mat”.

Great Activities!

Part of what makes phonological awareness so great is the fact that it really can be fun! It’s all about playing with the sounds in words. There are three books that I use, which are full of great activities as well as more information on the topic of PA. You might want to check one out for yourself!

This isn’t a safety issue, I can’t imagine an alphabet chart causing physical harm (though I suppose the occasional paper cut could be pretty traumatic) but the alphabet chart you’re using might not be teaching what it’s meant to teach.

Alphabet charts, those posters or room headers that show upper and lower case letters along with a picture, are meant to be a reference point for children. They are meant to help a child associate the written letter with its accompanying sound. So you have “Tt” next to a tiger, “Ff” next to a frog, and “Dd” next to a dinosaur. Easy enough, right?

X is for X-Con

The letter X is the biggest offender on these alphabet charts. Most alphabet charts show “Xx” x-ray, or “Xx” xylophone. These cues won’t help your children much, unless they’re trying to spell X-Men or xenophobia. Now I’ll be the first to agree, that finding a familiar word that begins with x is not an easy task. Just check out this list of words starting with x. Not too child friendly. The problem is, the purpose of an alphabet chart is not just to match letters to cute pictures with the same beginning letter, it is to offer visual cues to match with a useful sound.

The most common sound for the letter X, particularly in the early stages of reading and writing is the “ks” sound. That is the X sound children need to learn. Now, I don’t think I can come up with a word starting with X and the “ks” sound, but I know a few common words that end with the X-“ks” sound. Box and fox, for example. The fact that the sound is at the end doesn’t make it less useful. In fact, it’s more useful because it teaches the actual sound the child needs to learn.

Other Offenders

X is by far the worst offender, but you might want to take a look at the vowels on your chart too. Vowels are the Jason Bourne of the English language. Just when you think you know exactly what they’re about, they change on you. While we teach long and short sounds, we all know there are about twenty subtly different sounds those five letters can produce- think R controlled, schwa, diphthongs. For the sake of basic concepts, an alphabet chart should ideally show a picture corresponding with the short sound for the vowels. The long sounds are obvious – they state the letter’s name. It’s the short sounds that children will need to be reminded of. So instead of “Ii” ice cream, it would be better to find “Ii” insect, or iguana, or igloo. Now, this may require some vocabulary training, but really, with any alphabet chart, you need to spend some time explaining what each picture represents. Otherwise you have children reciting A for Crocodile or Q for Pretty Princess.

Quick Fix

The good news is, you don’t have to send your chart in to the factory to be retrofitted with a new part. You can do that yourself. Simply identify the offenders in your alphabet chart, choose words that more appropriately match the sound cues you are trying to teach, do a quick image search on the internet, print, paste over the offender, and you’re done!

Charts Vs Books

Now I don’t want you to suddenly rifle through all your alphabet storybooks and throw them out as well. Alphabet books like Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming, or Jerry Pallotta’s Icky Bug Alphabet Book shouldn’t be held to the same standard as the alphabet charts. While charts are meant as a ready reference across situations, alphabet books are meant to show application of the alphabet within a theme or context. They can show “airbrush” for A because tomorrow you’ll show them another book with “anaconda” for A. Books can show variation, but your chart needs to show consistent basic concepts.

No one will come from the government to enforce this recall. But if you have children trying to spell the word “zebra” with an X, you can’t say I didn’t warn you about your misleading “xylophone“.

OK, for those of you looking for more Dr. Seuss activities, here are five favorites to start off with! More to come!

(Does anyone else ever feel like they’re juggling this many things?)

The Cat in the Hat

After reading this timeless and iconic favorite, follow-up by playing your own version of UP, UP, UP with a Fish! You can use balls or bean bags to represent “the fish” and toss with a partner, stepping backward after each catch. Or you can simply add physical tasks, one on the other. Stand on one foot. Now hop! Now reach one hand up like you’re holding a fish bowl. Now fan yourself with the other hand. Oh, no! Everyone fall down! Great for large motor skills!

Green Eggs and Ham

Do I have to say it? Make some green eggs! Just add a little green food coloring (maybe even play around with color mixing by adding blue to the yellow eggs). Involve the little ones and build vocabulary by using good descriptors as you work. Emphasize the change from liquid to solid as you crack, whip, cook, and serve! I do so love green eggs and ham! Oh, as an insider tip, when you read this book, toward the end, the characters are talking underwater. Wiggle your finger over your lips as you read those lines to simulate underwater talking. The kids eat it up!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

This book is essentially a series of wacky rhymes! One advantage to this is the fact that you can edit and shorten it as much as you need to in order to match the attention span of your audience, since you don’t really need to tie together a storyline. Since it’s all about rhyming, follow up with a rhyming activity. Make rhyming sandwiches, as in this activity, or use the same cards and have the children jump, clap, ring a bell, etc. when they hear a rhyming pair.

There’s a Wocket in My Pocket

This is another perfect book for rhymers! Especially to help them focus on the sound, not the meaning since the rhyming pairs are all invented. Play a Wocket in the Pocket game afterward. Create a wocket by enlarging the illustration onto tagboard or simply drawing a face on a tongue depressor. It doesn’t have to be elaborate! Have one child, the seeker, close her eyes, while someone else hides the wocket by sitting on it. The seeker then asks a child, “Is there a wocket in your pocket?” If the guess is wrong, that child can give a clue as to where the wocket is. (“No, but it’s hiding by someone with pink shoes.”) Rhyming clues are even better. (“No, but it’s hiding near someone with pink moos.”) Take turns being the seeker and the hiders!

The Foot Book

Even as babies, my boys loved this book! Extend by painting with your feet! Use the same materials you would for finger painting, but use your toes (or entire feet) instead. Have children sit in a chair and paint on the paper on the floor, or roll out some big sheets of paper and let them run with painted feet! Have a wash bin and towels handy!

Next up: If I Ran the Zoo, And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street, and Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

This is a great song for learning about colors and for building rhyme recognition, an important skill for pre-readers (read more about phonological awareness here). Use this song during large group, music and movement time, or just as a filler during a transition. The little ones love it! Eventually, they’ll be ready to be the ones giving the clues!

Tune: Five Little Ducks (You know, “…but the one little duck with the feather on his back….”)

I was first introduced to Jan Slepian and Ann Seidler’s The Hungry Thing at a workshop on phonemic/phonological awareness (learn more about that here). So, obviously, this book and activity are great for building those critical prereading skills. In this story, the Hungry Thing shows up in a town, asking for food. The people can’t figure out what he wants. When he requests “shmancakes” they each have a different idea about what “shmancakes” actually are. One boy makes sense of it all, reminding them that “shmancakes” sound like “pancakes”. So they give the Hungry Thing some and he eats them all up! This continues on to include “feetloaf” and “gollipops”, “boop with a smacker” and “tickles”. As I read this story, I always pause a bit, allowing the children to chime in with the appropriate rhyming word.

Afterward, I introduce my Hungry Thing puppet. Mine is just a fuzzy, monster-like puppet. You could make your own out of fabric or a paper bag, improvise with one you have, or create a cardboard picture with the mouth cut out, similar to what I did in the dinosaur activity here. It doesn’t matter which one you use, the Thing is so hungry! Can the children help feed it? Arrange some play food on the floor, or give one piece to each child. Be sure to say the name of each piece of food as you set it down or hand it out so that the children are sure to know what they’re called.

“FEED ME!” the Hungry Thing says, just as it did in the book. The children respond as the townspeople did in the book, “What would you like to eat?” With much expression, the Hungry Thing asks for each food, substituting the first sound in each word as he did in the story. (You can certainly use nonesense words, “felery” for celery, but some of the children’s favorites are also when it ends up being a real word – hair for pear, sneeze for cheese. Do it any way you want, it just needs to rhyme.) The children place the food in the hungry thing’s mouth. My kids’ favorite part with my puppet is when the Thing munches voraciously on the food and then burps loudly with the food flying back out (so that I can clear the way for the next item). Think of Cookie Monster as your motivation.

Reading this book and participating in this activity helps to build rhyming skills, which are a fundamental pre-reading skill. Your children will love this activity! I often leave the book, puppet, and a bowl of food out in the reading area after doing this activity with a group of children so that they can continue the activity on their own!

Here’s an activity I think I picked up in a phonemic awareness book once upon a time. You begin by telling the children you have a friend who wants to be an invisible man, perhaps as a Halloween costume. (You may need to explain what “invisible means”.) Show a picture of a person (stick figures are ok) or just a face, if you’re working with younger children, drawn on a chalkboard or dry erase board. This man is not invisible at all! Tell the children that if they want to make part of the man invisible, they have to say the rhyming word. Give a few examples. If you or the children say “pies”, you erase the eyes. If you say “farm” erase an arm. Accept nonsense words (“gegs” rhymes with legs) as rhymes. Rhyme production is more difficult than rhyme recognition, so for younger children, you would say the rhyming word and give two options for the part to be erased (rhyme recognition). “What if I said “south”? Would that be the mouth or the eyes? South-Mouth, or South-Eyes?” For older children, you might say, “What word rhymes with arm?” (rhyme production)

As you and your children are exploring the properties of pumpkins, you discover that the fact that they are hollow is one of their best characteristics. You find this out as you dig out their seeds and make Jack-o-lanterns. You realize it’s importance as you send even enormous pumpkins floating on water. Another great way to utilize the hollow property of a pumpkin is to use it as a drum!

I often use a pumpkin to invite the children to beat out the syllables in their names. You could also use it in a music activity, just as you would use any drum or rhythm sticks. In fact, if you only have one big pumpkin drum, you could give the other children rhythm sticks to follow along with until it is their turn to use the pumpkin. Try this method out as you teach your children Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater. It’s an easy one to beat out with a steady beat, and the beats happen to coincide with the syllables, making it a perfect prereading activity as the children hear the sounds of the words. Just be sure to sing the song slowly so that the children can both sing and tap. Also, remember that children’s voices are naturally higher, and this song descends fairly low, so start out just a bit higher than you normally would.